Titans of Space® is a short guided tour of a few planets and stars, the point of which is to give the player a sense of scale of just how big these planets and stars are compared to each other.

It's not meant to be realistic, but more on the surreal holographic side. Everything you see is toy-sized, shrunk down to 1 millionth of their actual size, which means you will see Earth as a 12.7-meter-wide holographic ball, rather than the giant 12756km-wide ball of rock that it is.

Although the tour is on rails, you can proceed through it at your own pace. The controls are very simple, but there are a few things you can do during the tour:

Look around

Zoom in on things

Read the info panel in front of you (sometimes multiple pages)

Rotate a planet or moon (when applicable)

Orbit a planet or moon (when applicable)

Proceed to next tour stop whenever you're ready

This program supports several optional forms of input: keyboard, mouse, and/or a gamepad.

Once the tour is underway you don't actually need to use any input device (aside from the Rift) unless you wanted to zoom in on something. Most options can be configured using the Rift only.

There is a lot of information presented before the tour starts but you don't need to remember any of it. All of this information is accessible at any time during the tour, just hit the Escape key to cycle through the Help and Options menus.

Setup Notes:

If you have Oculus Runtime 0.6.0.1 installed, first switch to "Direct HMD Access from Apps" Rift Display Mode via the Oculus Config Util.

If you have Oculus Runtime 0.7.x installed, first ensure you are using the latest drivers for your graphics card.

To run the program, simply turn on your RIFT and double-click the TitansOfSpace-Classic-RIFT.exe to begin.
Titans of Space v1.8 has been built against Oculus SDK 0.6.1, so you must have Oculus Runtime 0.6.0.1 or 0.7.x installed.

Crank up the sound or use headphones! Sound effects and music are an integral part of this experience.

Performance Requirements: A graphics card capable of DirectX 11. Technically it can run just fine in DirectX 9 if needed, if you pass in the -force-d3d9 command line argument via a shortcut or batch file.
Titans of Space® maintains a minimum of 250 FPS on a Geforce GTX 680 (in VR), and 220 FPS on a Geforce GTX 660. Performance of this particular version is currently untested on lower-end or older hardware. If the program struggles on your system, I would appreciate hearing about your experience at drashvr (at) fastmail (dot) net.

Translations for 15 other languages are available from inside of the program.

Tip Jar:

Titans of Space® [Classic] is free to use (in a non-commercial setting), but if you happen to like it a lot you can thank me with PayPal or Bitcoin.

Any payment you make will also help fund future development. I plan to release a full version of Titans of Space and two spin-offs.

PayPal:

Bitcoin Wallet ID:1N67SxzCDLCC7fSHwtz9zoMPp9UrFbUX6G

If you make a payment (or if you have already made one in the past), I will make sure you receive your choice of the full version or one of the spin-offs for free!

Thank you for playing! :)

Download Links:

NOTE: Occasionally, the Chrome web browser will erroneously treat ZIPs from ADrive as malicious downloads. If it presents you with only the option to "Dismiss" the downloaded file, you can hit Ctrl+J to bring up the downloads page, and use the "Recover malicious file" link there to find the downloaded file. (Or use a different browser to re-download.)

NOTE #2: If you have just installed Oculus Runtime 0.7, you may run into a problem using RIFT apps. If so, Oculus recommends doing the following:

"The mirror window might be blank and the headset might not work after installing the 0.7 runtime and the NVIDIA 355.83 driver (or later). To fix this issue, restart your computer with the headset plugged in. You should only have to do this once."
Mobile Edition

Samsung Gear VR: Titans of Space v1.8 is available on the Oculus Store.

Google Cardboard: Titans of Space for Cardboard v1.1 is available for download from Google Play.

Narration Credits:
Michael McArdle (Twitter: MikeMan444)Special Thanks:
Special thanks to all translators and testers for their generosity! Translator credits are available inside the credits area of the program itself.

Command-Line Options:

Below is a list of available command-line options. They are unnecessary for the core user experience, but if you are interested in demoing the program to others, some may prove useful.

-full-tour-loop (tour will endlessly loop from end of tour back to beginning)

-2mindemo (kicks off a short and automated end-to-end demo lasting around 2 minutes)

-complete-demo-loop (sends the player on a non-stop loop around the Solar System, moons included)

-compact-demo-loop (sends the player on a non-stop loop around the Solar System, most moons excluded)

-nonstop-stop-duration # (sets the amount of time spent sitting at a tour stop in Non-Stop mode)

-end-after-solar-system (introduces an earlier "definite end" after the Solar System portion of the tour)

-end-after-large-stars (introduces an earlier "definite end" after the Large Stars portion of the tour)

-go-directly-to-tour (skips the starting menu areas and goes directly to the tour)

-disable-help-and-options-during-tour (disallows the use of Help or Options during the tour)

-restart-after-idle-time #.# (restarts tour after #.# seconds of no input. if -detect-idle-hmd is specified, then this also monitors movement of the headset itself.)

-detect-idle-hmd (experimental, works for my DK2 in my home environment, but not necessarily for others)

When resetting your orientation/position, the screen now quickly fades out for the reset.

The "Ready" panel may now be used as a virtual button to continue to the next tour stop (same as using the blue triangle button on the dashboard).

Input mappings have been adjusted, mainly for controllers:

Button A now activates virtual buttons

Button X now proceeds to the next tour stop

Button Y now cycles through both Help and Options HUD screens

For both keyboard and controller, zooming is no longer the same button used to activate virtual buttons. Zooming may only be done via [Shift key] / [Controller Right Bumper "RB"] / [Controller Right Trigger "RT"].

Hitting Button A when not looking at a virtual button will now activate a temporary overlay reminding the player which buttons to use to activate virtual buttons / continue tour / show more info, etc.

More controllers should now be supported.

Help and Options HUD screens now have a dark backdrop to make them easier to read.

Asteroid belt has been adjusted.

Positional tracking "barriers" have been improved to not get in the way when leaning back to look up.

Planets now stay put by default, enhancing the sense of scale. They will still swing in for their first appearance. This behaviour can be toggled using the "Keep Planets Visible" option (or using the K key).

Support for some command-line arguments:

"-nonstop-stop-duration #" allows you to set the amount of time spent sitting at a tour stop in Non-Stop mode.

"-complete-demo-loop" will configure options to send the player on a non-stop loop around the Solar System, moons included.

"-compact-demo-loop" is the same as -complete-demo-loop, but this will skip moons.

All options and preferences now persist between runs. Remember that you can reset everything to default values using F11.

The flight path going from Uranus to Neptune in the Compact route has been adjusted.

The Custom Music feature has been restored. It functions the same as it did in v1.37c and earlier. As a reminder, here is how the feature works:

You can place one or two of your own songs into the "CustomMusic" folder inside the _Data folder. For MacOSX, use Show Package Contents on the app file, and the CustomMusic folder is inside the Contents folder.

If you want to replace the music heard while touring the Solar System, place a song named "solarsystem.XXX" into the CustomMusic folder, where XXX is any file extension corresponding to one of the following formats: Ogg, WAV, XM, IT, MOD, or S3M.

To replace the music heard in the "Large Stars" segment, place a song named "largestars.XXX" into the CustomMusic folder.

You can replace one or replace both.

To stop using custom music, remove these songs from the CustomMusic folder.

These songs will be looped.

The cockpit has been adjusted.

Other adjustments and bugfixes.

Changelog for v1.37c -> v1.52:

Updated to use Oculus SDK 0.4.1.

Complete overhaul of underlying program. Almost all of the original features have been re-implemented, but perhaps one or two minor ones from 1.37 are now absent. If you are miss an old feature that's not there anymore, please tell me about it at drashvr (at) fastmail (dot) net.

Feature: Input and interaction has been revamped. The reliance on using a keyboard has been eliminated, and almost everything can now be done purely using your Rift. As a result, many keyboard shortcuts and controller bindings have been changed.

Feature: The player can choose between the Complete tour, or a Compact one. The Complete tour is basically the same as in earlier versions, but with one new stop and a few extra moons. The Compact tour is a shortened version of this where most of the moons are skipped.

Feature: Positional tracking support.

Players can re-center their position at any time using F1 / Controller Start, or via the Misc Actions HUD.

Players can cycle through 3 different camera bounds modes using F3 or Controller's Left Trigger ("LT").

When a player's head enters an obstacle, the screen will fade out and suggest the player move back out or re-center.

Players can turn their virtual body on or off, along with the seat itself.

Feature: Other DK2 support, such as a toggle for low persistence, timewarp, black smear correction, etc.

Experimental Feature: Player may now orbit some planets and moons. Currently no visual indicator for this, but for most tour stops at a single planet or moon, orbiting can be started and stopped using the Left Ctrl or Controller's Left Bumper ("LB").

Content: Additional facts and info are available at most tour stops. The user can cycle through these additional pages of text at any time. Not 100% complete.

Improvement: Performance has been greatly improved. As a result, there is no more dynamic quality adjustment of eye candy, and all players will have the same experience.

Improvement: Various Solar System bodies now use better textures to benefit the DK2 experience.

Improvement: The cockpit has been adjusted.

Improvement: Looping mode and Non-stop modes may now coexist.

Other adjustments and bugfixes.

Changelog for v1.37 -> v1.37c:

Improvement: Updated to use Oculus SDK 0.2.5c.

Improvement: The Oculus Rift's prediction value is now automatically adjusted when going in and out of Vsync. Due to this and other tweaks, headtracking should no longer be "swimmy" when Vsync is on.

Improvement? Zooming is smoother.

Feature: The delay at each tour stop in Nonstop Mode is now configurable (via text string 173).

Feature: Nonstop Mode can be configured whether or not to hide the entire "steering column" (via text string 174).

Changelog for v1.35 -> v1.37:

Feature: Almost everything has received a facelift of some kind (some of it is pretty subtle, though). However, the animated surface of stars has been removed as it was unrealistic and very GPU-heavy.

Feature: Most adjustments to settings are now saved between sessions. Hitting the F1 key will restore all settings to their defaults.

Feature: Some planets and moons can be rotated at will using the left/right arrow keys (or left/right d-pad buttons on a gamepad controller). A yellow icon on the right will show up when this option is available.

Feature: Travel between tour stops can be slowed down at will and even stopped completely. Use the up/down arrow keys (or up/down d-pad buttons on a gamepad controller). A blue line below the information panel indicates the current setting.

Performance: Performs better on newer computers, performs worse on older computers. Framerate is more than doubled for a GTX 680, but framerate drops to 30 FPS on an old ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3670.

Other minor adjustments and bugfixes.

Changelog for v1.34 -> v1.35:

Feature: Updated to use Oculus SDK 0.2.4. You may now calibrate your magnetometer using the new Oculus Config Util (available from Oculus as of 8/16/2013), and Titans of Space will use that instead of asking you to calibrate every time it starts.

Feature: Take screenshots by hitting the F12 key (useful for fullscreen modes). Screenshots will appear in the app's Data folder as "screenshot###.png" where ### is a random string of letters and numbers.

Other minor adjustments and bugfixes.

Changelog for v1.33 -> v1.34:

Feature: To restart the tour at any time, hit the R key.

Feature: Instead of random stars in the night sky, actual stars are now used. How many constellations can you pick out?

Feature: Added a "Nonstop Mode", where the distracting controls and facts panel in front of you will disappear and there will be no delay at each tour stop. The player will still stop briefly at each destination, but continue on to the next immediately.

Feature: Either Hydra controller may now be used for positional body tracking. Just hit the Start button on the one you want to use.

Feature: Updated to use SDK 0.2.3. This means more robust drift calibration and automatic usage of your IPD if you have configured an Oculus profile. The profile that has "set as default" checked is the one that will be used.

Feature: To toggle showing the tour guide facts panel on and off, use the T key (or gamepad right shoulder / hydra button 3 or 4). This could be useful if you wanted to test yourself on the information like peeking at flash cards.

Feature: There are now two Oculus Rift quality levels, "Slow PC" and "Fast PC". Both will give you the exact same experience, but Slow PC will start off with no eye candy enabled and work its way up, and Fast PC will start with all eye candy enabled and work its way down. This eliminates much of the slowdown right when a tour starts for the first time on a slower computer.

Feature: 4x MSAA anti-aliasing can now be toggled using the A key. The screen will blank temporarily when you toggle this. 4x MSAA results in a serious hit to performance for not a lot of benefit, but the option is there if you want it.

Feature: To sort-of-quickly fly to the next tour stop, use the TAB key. Use Shift-TAB to do the old 1-second quick-fly feature. (Don't use this on your first time playing through Titans of Space, as that misses the whole point.)

Vsync seems to feel great for me now, not sure why! But, it will still be off by default so that appropriate quality level can be determined. Feel free to experiment with vsync after the frame rate stabilizes in the beginning.

A small number of translation file changes have been made. If you use anything other than English, please be prepared for some minor inaccuracies until the changes are (re-)translated. More info in Setup Notes above.

Bugfix: Turning off demo mode during the return trip to Earth would screw things up afterwards.

Bugfix: Turning on demo mode right after starting the tour did nothing.

Other minor adjustments and bugfixes.

Changelog for v1.3 -> v1.33:

MacOSX support. Only tested on a 4-year-old Mac Mini running Lion -- it worked but ran poorly (20-45 fps, all eye candy shut off). If it runs great or poorly for you, I would be interested to know what kind of Mac you have.

Bugfix: Replacing only the music for large stars is now working properly.

Small changes to make Titans of Space completely translatable.

Experimental Feature: IPD trickery mode. Use the I key to toggle. Best used in "high" motion intensity mode. When this is on, flying close to planets or moons will cause them to appear larger than you thought they were. This feature is undocumented inside Titans of Space, but you will know it is off if you see a red light on the lower left of the indicator light area. Once it is on, it varies from black to light blue depending on how close you are to a planet or moon.

Added an indicator light (middle left of indicator light panel) to show what quality level Titans of Space is running at. As the quality is reduced to improve frame rate, the color of this indicator will go from greens to yellows to reds to black.

Changelog for v1.2 -> v1.3:

Bugfix: Yaw drift correction is greatly improved, with visible feedback during the tour.

Feature: The cockpit seat's headrest has been removed for improved visibility behind you.

Feature: A new looping demo mode with auto-continue at each stop after small delay (use D key to toggle, demo loops around Solar System only).

Feature: Supports translations / alternate text for nearly all text. (See Setup Notes for info on how to create/use a translation or alternate text.)

Feature: A motion intensity setting has been including for those craving more a motion-intense experience. By default this is "low", and "low" mode is the same as the flight path in v1.2 and earlier. (use M key to toggle)

Feature: Custom soundtracks. Can replace the songs for the Solar System and Large Stars segments individually. Custom songs will be looped. Formats supported: Ogg, WAV, XM, IT, MOD, S3M. (See Setup Notes for info on how to use your own music.)

Feature: Can toggle soundtrack completely off, but sound effects will remain. (use S key to toggle. Note after being off, toggling back on does not take effect immediately)

Changelog for v1.1 -> v1.2:

Bugfix: On slower/older machines, one of the large stars stuck around when it shouldn't have.

Feature: Use L key to toggle planet/star labels (but you have to toggle it twice before it works, I'll fix that next time).

Cockpit (and your suited body) is now 20% larger.

Adjusted flight path round Europa & Io.

Made it a little bit more clear that if the user skips the drift calibration at the beginning, the forward direction may need to be frequently reset during the tour.

Contact:

Suggestions or critical feedback on all aspects of Titans of Space® are always welcome!

I can be reached at support (at) drashvr (dot) com.
I also have a blog/site at DrashVR.com, and my twitter ID is @Drash_VR.

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Privacy Policy:

This program now collects data on all platforms:

What is collected:

The app being played, and the app's version number.

The operating system and operating system version number (e.g., Android OS 4.4.4).

The name of the controller used, if any (e.g., Samsung Gamepad EI-GP20).

The name of the device used (e.g., Note 4)

The number of times the app has been played on that device.

The duration of each playtime.

How far through the app the player gets before quitting.

Whether or not certain features are used.

What is NOT collected:

No user-identifiable information is collected.

No IP address is collected.

No device ID is collected.

How is this data collected:

A lightweight encrypted data transmission at startup, if the internet is accessible.

A lightweight encrypted data transmission when pausing/exiting the app, if the internet is accessible.

How is this data stored:

All data is stored in a secure database that no one but DrashVR LLC has access to.

How will the data be used:

All collected data will be used to gain visibility into how the app is played in order to improve it.

Who will be able to access this data:

Only DrashVR LLC.

There may be a time in the future when aggregate "big picture" statistics are published so that the VR community can benefit from it.

Titans of Space is a trademark registered in the US Patent and Trademark Office.